After thinking for a while Byakuya actually felt happy, happy that he could do something for Hotaru. For the first time he understood how Renji felt when Renji thought that Rukia liked that orange haired kid instead of him. Even though he didn't know exactly how that whole thing was going, he was happy that Rukia and Renji seemed to be friends again. He also knew how it felt to be free. He hadn't known it at the time but focusing on trying to get Hotaru to love him had made him feel trapped. He also felt trapped by his responsibility as the head of the Kuchiki clan. He just had to find a way out of the whole marriage to Hotaru thing. Could the High Commander help him and Hotaru? He had to find a way, he just had to.

Byakuya then did something he hasn't done in years. He laughed. That's right he laughed a nice belly laugh. He would find the girl that was right for him or maybe he had already found her in Hisana. Why did she have to die and leave him all alone? He had Rukia but it wasn't the same. He wanted Hisana yet he had wanted Hotaru. What was going to happen to the happiness he once had at the thought of being married again, at the thought that he would have someone to love and someone to love him back? He needed to be loved. He deserved it, right?

Byakuya had thought long and hard about how to get his family to cancel the wedding and planned marriage all together. He found that telling them that she had worked in a bar, ran away from her responsibilities, and probably had bad habits worked best. They canceled the arrangement almost immediately. It made him very happy. It also made Hotaru very happy. Now he hoped that his family would leave him alone about the whole marriage and production of offspring thing.

Several weeks pass

Naoko had been thinking of how to get her family off her back for several weeks. She had yet to figure it out. She had heard about the canceled Kuchiki wedding a few weeks back but she had not heard why it had been canceled. She wondered why the head of the Kuchiki clan would cancel a wedding after it had been so close to the day of the wedding. Whoever he was having marry his son must have done something very bad. She went to sleep thinking that the son must be feeling very sad.

Sometime during the night she heard a noise and woke all the way up to see what the noise was. To her surprise she saw a figure standing in the corner.

Renji and Byakuya were in the world of the living on a mission to help Rukia's friend Kurosaki, Ichigo (the orange haired kid) fight a group of hollows he was having trouble killing. Ichigo said that the group was large and would double team him so he was having a hard time. Ichigo lead the two toward the place the hollows always showed up. However what was waiting there for them was not what they were looking for. In the middle of the alley there was a person. As they cautiously approached they saw that the person was a woman and she was not dressed as someone should be dressed in the middle of the day. Ichigo knelt next to her and checked her for signs of life. He noticed that she was alive but had a head wound. He carefully picked her up and took her to his father's clinic. The other two followed him with their guards up, prepared should anything attack them.

However, when they arrived Ichigo's dad Isshin said, "How am I supposed to help when I can't see you?"

"Oh right," Ichigo said.

"Urahara," Renji asked. Byakuya did not sat anything.

"Guess going there would be best since he probably can see her," Ichigo answered. So the trio headed toward Urahara's shop.

Urahara, Kisuke said, "Well well what do we have here?"

"Kisuke, we found this girl tied up in an alley. She seems to have a serious head wound."

"Bring her in and I will see what we can do." Ichigo carried the girl into the back of the shop where the shop owner lived and put her down in a bedroom. "Please wait in the living room while I see to her."

Ichigo and Renji left him to tend to the girl. They found Byakuya sitting in the living room sipping on a cup of tea.

"Do you think she will be ok," Ichigo asked.

"I don't know. I hope we got her here in time. That wound look really bad."

"Yeah I hope so too."

After a long while Kisuke came into the livingroom and announced, "The woman will hopefully be alright but I will know better after she wakes."

"She is still out?"

"Yes she is unconscious. She took a blow to the head. Where did you find her?"

"In that alley where all those hollow have been gathering. She was tied up, just lying there in the middle of it," Ichigo answered.

"Were there any Hollows around?"

"None. They seemed to have disappeared. I did not sense any int he area."

"I sensed lingering spiritual pressure around the woman that did not belong to her. She has an immense amount on her own," Byakuya added.

"What kind of lingering spiritual pressure? Have you felt it before," Kisuke asked.

"I could tell it did not belong to the woman and that the person it did belong to was angry or upset."

"Are you sure you have not felt or sensed this sort before?"

"It seems familiar but I can't place it."

"Should we investigate," Renji asked.

"Maybe you should," Kisuke suggested.

Byakuya rose from his seat and said, "Come on Renji. We shall investigate this matter. Take care of her, Urahara." Renji got up and followed Byakuya out of the shop and back to the scene.